In the manufacture of packaged pet food products, in particular dried and canned pet food for dogs and cats, it is known to add nutritional supplements, such as vitamins, minerals and the like to satisfy basic dietary requirements of the animal.
In the case of most vitamin and mineral supplements, the amounts mixed into the food product to achieve general health benefits are small enough to not adversely affect the palatability of the overall product. In essence, the food product will be eaten by the pet animal regardless of the presence or absence of such additives.
On the other hand, inclusion in the pet food product of dietary fibre source material in amounts sufficient to achieve a “balanced” diet will often lead to packaged products that are not readily accepted by the pet animal, due to its reduced palatability.
Like other creatures, dogs, cats and other companion animals suffer various ailments and health conditions that often require appropriate forms of medication and/or other treatment. It is well known that medications and remedies for companion animals can be provided in the form of tablets, powders or liquids for oral administration. However, many pet animals are reluctant to take such tablets, powders or liquids and having to force these into the animal's mouth can be stressful for both the animal and the person administering the medication.
For these reasons, especially if the medication or remedy is unpleasant tasting, pet owners often mix the medication/remedy with the animal's normal daily food, so as to hopefully mask the unpleasant taste. This procedure is inconvenient, cumbersome and sometimes subject to “trial and error”, as the “masking” effect is not necessarily always achieved and the medication or remedy infused food may end up being rejected by the animal.
It is also known in the pet care industry to incorporate pharmaceutical medications into an edible food substrate, primarily for the purpose of masking the taste of the medication and/or improving administration to the animal. Typically, the pharmaceutical medication is mixed during manufacture of the end product with a pleasant tasting substance (e.g. meat analogue product) and subsequently packaged into individually administrable portions which can then be bought at supermarkets, veterinary surgeries and the like. Examples of such type of product which incorporate synthetic pharmaceutical drugs are Exelpett™, Ezydose Allwormer and Heartguard™. These products are essentially pharmaceutical products that are administered in addition to the animal's usual daily meals, such that when the course of treatment is over and the pet animal's health concerns have been rectified, administration of the relevant product can be easily discontinued. Accordingly, such products are generally only used spasmodically as a short-term treatment regime for pet animal diseases.
With the increasing use of “alternative” disease treatment regimes in humans, it has also become known that plant-based remedies that are beneficial in ameliorating various human ailments, can be equally used to treat or ameliorate ailments in pet animals. Plant-based remedies include different types of essential oils, herbal extracts, powdered herbs, roots, leaves and tree barks, comestible plant fibre etc. Hereinafter this group of ingredients are simply referred to by the colloquial expression “herbal medicines or remedies”.
Herbal medicines have been devised by individual pet owners to address specific, mainly diet-based ailments of dogs and cats. Herbal medicines can be administered orally directly into the mouth of the pet animal, or by admixing it with the pet animal's daily meal. However, many herbal remedies are indeed far more unpleasant to taste and/or smell than pharmaceutical drugs. Although this unpleasant taste is generally not a major concern with humans, who can be persuaded to bear the unpleasant taste on the basis that they will benefit from taking the herbal remedy, the situation with pet animals is very different. Their sense of smell and taste will often make the task of “masking” the unpleasant tasting herbal remedy with other food additives and/or food ingredients far more complicated than is the case with the pharmaceutical drugs. This in turn makes the task of finding a suitable carrier for administration of herbal remedies to pet animals difficult to achieve on a commercial food manufacturing scale. Some problems that need to be addressed are shelf-life, degradation of the herbal remedy when in contact with other food substances over prolonged storage periods, stability of the product, basic binding to preserve activity of herbal ingredients, amongst others.
One of the more common diet-related problems among companion animals is flatulence and their gastro-intestinal health (GIH). The unpleasant odour associated with flatulence constitutes a significant psycho-sociological problem in animal-owner relationship, let alone the possible underlying gut health aspects. Human studies have demonstrated the detrimental effects of toxic sulphur compounds present within intestinal gas on the health of the large intestine, and such compounds have been implicated in the pathogenesis of ulcerative colitis. The major components of intestinal gas which lead to flatulence are odourless gases, including nitrogen, hydrogen, carbon dioxide, methane and oxygen. However, trace quantities of toxic sulphurous gases, such as hydrogen sulphide are responsible for flatus odour. Sulphate reducing bacteria (SRB) are the bacterial genus responsible for reducing sulphate to sulphide, thereby generating hydrogen sulphide. Research in the human field has focussed on the determination of gas volumes which lead to bloating and discomfort, whilst in the animal field research has centred on the characterisation of offensive odours within flatus.
Several prior art documents disclose remedies to reduce the flatulence and/or the offensive odour associated therewith. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,716,641 and 5,679,376 disclose certain pharmaceutical compositions that are reported to reduce flatulence. Some of these compositions are based on simethicone.
The removal from food of materials believed to be strongly implicated in the production of flatulence (such as certain sugars and oligosaccharides) has also been described. For examples, see U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,871,801 and 4,645,677.
The use of dietary supplements and additives to reduce flatulence odour is less well reported in the patent literature. There are a few examples, such as the addition of chitosan (e.g. see U.S. Pat. No. 5,773,427) or fumaric acid (e.g. see U.S. Pat. No. 5,589,186) to the diet.
Salts of zinc are known to react with volatile sulphur gases, especially H2S (e.g. see U.S. Pat. No. 5,405,836). The use of dietary zinc salts to reduce the H2S content of intestinal gases has also been suggested in the published literature, e.g. see Suarez F. L., Springfield J, & Levitt M D (1998) “Identification of gases responsible for the odour of human flatus and evaluation of a device purported to reduce this odour”. Gut. 43.100-104.
The inclusion in the diet of extracts of Yucca Shidigera (or Yucca Elata) has been shown to reduce the malodour of canine and feline faeces (e.g. see Lowe J A, Taylor A J and Linforth R (1997) “The effect of Yucca Shidigera extract on canine and feline faecal volatiles occurring concurrently with faecal aroma amelioration”, Research In Veterinary Science 63, pages 67-71, from which it is reasonable to infer that flatulence malodour would also be reduced.
Charcoal is also known as an adsorbent for noxious gases, and its ability to reduce flatus malodour within a cushion has been proven (again see article by Suarez et al). Charcoal is also a component in a small number of orally administered odour-reducing products currently on the market.
Because of physiological similarities, one can assume that substances and mixtures of compounds that successfully address flatulence problems perceived to exist in dogs and cats, could be adapted for consumption by humans.
The present invention has been devised in light of perceived problems associated with the administration of per se non-palatable dietary health supplements to pet animals.
One aim of the invention is to provide a commercially packaged pet food product for administration to a mammal pet animal on a regular basis, i.e. in the form of “treat” products, in accordance with a recommended feeding regime, in addition to the regular daily diet of the animal, that will contribute in maintaining and/or improving specific health indicators of the pet animal.
Within this broader aim, it would be advantageous to provide a packaged pet food product that when taken on a regular, e.g. daily basis, ameliorates flatulence related odour problems with a pet animal.
Also within the broader aim, it would be advantageous to provide a packaged pet food product which will improve overall gastro-intestinal health of the pet animal when consumed on a regular, ongoing basis.
Within the above stated broader aim, it would be similarly advantageous to provide a packaged pet food product which, taken on a regular daily basis, is capable of strengthening the immune system of the pet animal.
Also within the broader aim, it would be advantageous to provide a packaged pet food product which when taken on a daily basis will alleviate “stress” related conditions of the pet animal.
Within the scope of the above aims it is intended to provide palatable pet food product recipes that incorporate plant-based dietary functional additives and combinations thereof that achieve the improvements in relation to the health indicators mentioned above, and which can be packaged as a “treat” product.
The term packaged pet food product is used herein to generally encompass dried food pellets, biscuits, bars, “chewy bites” and similar products that are given by a pet owner to a cat or dog as a “treat”, e.g. once a day, in addition to the normal diet.